"Just hope he misses"

POUGHKEEPSIE - I had a chance to catch up with Marist coach Chuck Martin after Siena's 79-60 victory over Martin's Red Foxes.

The main topic was Edwin Ubiles, who scored 15 points after returning to the lineup.

“You can do a bunch of things,” said Martin about how to play Ubiles defensively. “You can force him left, he wants to go right, you can run guys at him, but when you’re as talented as he is and they have as many weapons surrounding him, it’s difficult. Really what you do, is, you just hope he misses."

Ubiles hit a big shot just before halftime as Martin brought up coaching at Memphis, where was an assistant and that's what (future No. 1 pick) Derrick Rose would do, just make a shot to prove the fact that he was the better player.

“It confirms the fact that, yeah I’m good and you know I’m good and I’m going to show you I’m good,” said Martin.

*****

Alex Franklin sent most of the Marist students heading for the gates of the McCann Center with his one back-scratching slam with 6:05 to that gave Siena a 70-49 lead.

“I’m just used to dunking, so I criticize myself pretty hard,” said Franklin, after he replied that the dunk wasn't one of his better ones.

Ubiles doubtful for Marist

LOUDONVILLE - Siena senior Edwin Ubiles said he is a game-time decision for tomorrow's game against Marist.

Ubiles has missed the last two games with a shoulder injury and hasn't practiced in a week.

"If I don't play tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I'll be back for the next game after that," Ubiles said.

The next game for Siena is the Gold Rush night on Friday, Feb. 5 versus Iona.

While the Poughkeepsie native would like to return for the Marist game, he has also thought about how sitting out would give him another six days to recover.

"I've thought about that and maybe I should sit this one out, but I am going back to my hometown," Ubiles said. "A lot of people are looking forward to seeing me play. I'm not going to force anything, but I'm going to see how it feels."

Ubiles has missed three of the last four games, first with back spasms and now suffering with a shoulder injury.

"It's a little frustrating," he said. "Nobody wants to miss any games. I'd love to be out there to give my team a better chance at winning the game as well. If we lose a game, it's not going to be fun knowing that if I was out there, there would have been a different feel to the game. Fortunately, we're still winning and keeping positive. I'm just glad to see these guys keeping it up without me."

The only game Ubiles has played of the last four was when he hit the big 3-pointer to ice the narrow victory over Loyola (Md.).

No Will Harris, who was out for a third straight game with a leg injury and no Tim Ambrose, who sat on the bench for the final 3:37 of the game because of his recent late-game decision-making.

"We need Tim to make better decisions because I want him on the floor down the stretch," said UAlbany coach Will Brown. "Tonight, he didn’t deserve to be on the floor down the stretch."

Ambrose had six turnovers in the game and had a costly turnover late in the team's last game at Stony Brook.

"He's been on the floor in crunch time and hasn't answered the bell," Brown said. "Until he makes better decision down the stretch, we'll go with the young guys."

The Great Danes are now halfway through their conference schedule and have just one win, over a UMBC team that is 1-20.

It's clear that the veterans need to step up or this season will not get any brighter.

"We have to play better," McRae said. "We have to help lead them and help teach them how to make good decisions, while we make good decisions. We have to lead by example more so than verbally and I feel that will help us get some more wins."

UAlbany tripled to death

Boston University knocked down a school-record 16 3-pointers and cruised to a 79-58 victory over UAlbany on Tuesday night.

While the loss is to the preseason pick to win the league, it leaves the Great Danes (1-4, 6-14) tied for seventh in the league standings and we're almost one-third of the way through with the conference schedule.

Another negative is that senior Will Harris, who came into the game with an Achilles injury, injured his left knee and missed the game's final 16 minutes.

Coach Will Brown said he thought Harris would be unlikely to play when the Great Danes host Maine on Thursday at SEFCU Arena.

Ubiles tweaks back

ALBANY - While Siena played well and came away with a comfortable victory, senior Edwin Ubiles sat out the game with a muscle strain in his back.

"It just kind of happened out of nowhere," said Ubiles following Monday's game. "I went for a pass (in Sunday's practice) and I just felt a little strain in my back. From there on, it just got worse."

The rest of the team stepped up with Ubiles on the sideline.

"Hopefully Eddie will be back soon," said junior Ryan Rossiter. "We definitely need him in the starting lineup, but I think Owen (Wignot) played solid for us today, Kyle Downey played well of the bench and O.D. (Anosike) and Davis (Martens) played great."

Ubiles couldn't make it through practice on Sunday and wasn't medically cleared to play Monday night.

"He couldn't go yesterday in practice, felt like he was going to be okay today," said Siena coach Fran McCaffery. "He wasn't cleared, was having some discomfort with his back. We'll see he is tomorrow and we'll see if he can play Thursday, but we won't know until we get there."

Ubiles said he was having trouble moving at all when it first happened, but is hoping to be back Thursday.

Road trip for Great Danes

The America East Conference established a new policy before the year that said any conference road trip that is less than 200 miles away must me a day off trip.

The University at Albany's fifth conference game brings about their first chance to experience that as they travel the 175 or so miles to Boston to take on Boston University Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

"I'm anxious to see how we respond collectively, especially our young guys and that's why it's important that our older guys play well," said UAlbany coach Will Brown on Monday.

The Great Danes will make this day of trip four times (Boston, Binghamton, Vermont, Hartford) and it will certainly be a little bit different.

"All of us did it for four years in high school," said sophomore Billy Allen. "It's definitely going to be a change for the older guys."

Brown said the team will leave in the morning, get to a hotel where they will check in for the day to watch film and eat at the hotel and get a chance to stretch the legs before heading to the arena for the game.

"We don't have a great road record, so maybe if we switch things up it will help us," said Allen.

Vermont and Binghamton have already made day of trips to SEFCU Arena and posted victories over UAlbany.

Danes need a win

ALBANY - University at Albany senior Will Harris made no bones about saying how important Saturday's game is to get off the America East schneid.

"We need to win every single game that we have left," said Harris, the Great Danes leading scorer. "We're o-fer right now and we're trying to bump that up one tomorrow night."

UAlbany (0-3, 5-13) has had an uncharacteristically bad start to conference play, losing their first three games - two of which were at home - and shooting less than 37 percent in all three.

"It's kind of frustrating knowing that we have talent and we have a lot of good things going for us," Harris said. "We just have to put it all together at once."

The Retrievers (0-3, 1-15) are off to an even worse start.

After winning the conference in 2008 and then losing to Binghamton in the championship final last season, UMBC isn't used to this kind of start recently either.

The Retreivers are being led by a player familiar to the Capital District, Siena transfer Chris De La Rosa.

De La Rosa is tied for second in the conference in assists (4.8 per game) and is now averaging 10.4 points per game.

UAlbany is too busy looking for answers of their own to worry about what is ailing other teams.

"We're not good enough right now to get down 12, 13 points every game, fight back and sit there and say if we had another minute or two we'd be okay," said UAlbany coach Will Brown. "We have to get off to a better start. We have to sustain it and we have to make some shots."

The other thing the Great Danes will have to do is rebound.

UMBC is the worst rebounding team in the conference, while UAlbany is the toughest team in the league to rebound against.

"We have to exploit them, that's the biggest thing," said senior center Brett Gifford. "We have to hit the offensive boards hard, get easy baskets."

While Coach Brown has said he hasn't stressed any game as being "must-win," they can't allow themselves to lose too many league games out of the gate.

"The biggest thing we can control is our effort," Gifford said. "I feel like if we bring that the entire game, we'll be fine."

Despite the fact that this UMBC team is the one that ended UAlbany's season last year at SEFCU Arena, Brown said his guys would and should be already motivated enough.

"I think the fact that we're 0-3 in league is all the motivation that these guys need," he said.

Saints feeling good

Siena (4-0, 11-6) has won five straight games to pull into Saturday's first place showdown with Niagara (3-1, 10-6) feeling pretty good about themselves.

“We’re feeling pretty good,” said Siena coach Fran McCaffery said. “Our bench gave us some big minutes in those (recent) games and I think we’re feeling pretty good right now about where we our health-wise and where our legs are.”

The Saints have won 28 of their last 30 games against MAAC schools and are riding a 28-game homecourt winning streak.

“I think things are starting to flow a little bit better,” said senior forward Alex Franklin. “There’s always room for improvement. The team is really coming into stride and this is one of the places we want to be right now.”

Not a "UAlbany" type effort

ALBANY - Director of Basketball Operations and former UAlbany player Brent Wilson turned to coach Will Brown following Thursday's 62-57 loss to Binghamton and told him that wasn't a UAlbany effort.

“We never got out-toughed and outrebounded like that ever,” said Brown, recalling what Wilson said to him.

It wasn't a good game by many accounts for the Great Danes, who were coming off their best offensive performance of the year against Yale.

“I was surprised with how poorly we hit the glass and how poorly we blocked out,” said Brown.

UAlbany was outrebounded 41-28 by the taller, but smaller (in terms of depth) Binghamton squad.

Brown called it "ridiculous" and said he's never seen that type of disparity in rebounding from one of his teams.

“To me, you can take all the technique in the world and throw it in the garbage, rebounding is toughness and you need to be a ball-getter,” Brown said.

Brown was so disappointed that he said his veterans weren't leading and that his best leader is sophomore Billy Allen.

The Great Danes have a lot to work on before Sunday's game against Vermont.

On the other end, not a lot was expected from the Bearcats, who lost six players, including Troy're Emanuel Mayben after an offseason full of turmoil that left the defending conference champions a shell of their former selves.

While they picked up a victory, interim coach Mark Macon stopped short of calling it a statement game.

“It’s only one game,” Macon said. “We play to win one game at a time.”

Macon said it was a good game and he seemed happy to come out with the win.

“They didn’t make shots today, we did,” he said. “They’re a good team, we just, today, did some things better.”

I really liked what Greer Wright brought to the table for Binghamton.

The junior college transfer is long and lean and even handled the ball.

About Me

Andrew Santillo is a sports reporter at The Record in Troy, New York. Originally from Niskayuna, Andrew graduated from Ithaca College in 2005 with a degree in journalism. He currently resides in Albany.